Why was four-star mini PC in Buy It! section?

As a regular reader, I’d like to ask a question that’s been bothering me. In Issue 669 you reviewed the Geekom Mini IT13 (page 23), giving it a five-star Buy It! stamp of approval. In the same issue, it appeared as your favourite mini PC in your Buy It! section (page 32).

In Issue 670, you gave the Beelink GTR7 7840HS a four-star Recommended award (page 22). Then in Issue 673’s Buy It! section this Beelink computer was named as your new favourite mini PC. I thought the Buy It! section was only for devices that had won five stars, meaning that the Beelink should never have appeared there. Please clarify because I want to buy a mini PC, and I’m confused. Piotr Mioduszewsk

CA SAYS Piotr’s right that our Buy It! section is typically reserved for devices that we’ve given a five-star Buy It! award to. These are our current favourite devices in a range of categories – see pages 30-34.

However, on rare occasions we need to place a ‘Recommended’ (four-star) product in the section because there are no five-star alternatives available.

This happened in our Mini PC category in Issue 673. The Geekom Mini IT13, our top choice in Issue 672, was no longer available, and there were no suitable five-star alternatives. The next-best device was Beelink’s GTR7 7840HS, which, as Piotr says, won four stars in Issue 670. We always intended this to be a temporary placement until a new five-star mini PC was on sale. It has now been replaced by the Minisforum UM780XTX (pictured below), which earns a Buy It! award on page 23.

Judging what our favourite mini PC is can be tricky because there are so many coming on to the market, and they can be removed from sale without notice. The market is fluid and unpredictable. But generally, anything that gets four stars and higher is a decent device that we’d be happy to use, and recommend.